The search for bluefin tuna is on! A team of scientists from Stanford University and other partner institutions is scouring waters in both the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. The goal - to place electronic tags in giant bluefin tuna to learn more about their migrations, behavior, and environmental preferences. Read about their adventures below...

Tuesday, January 8, 2013

Sea Surfing “Wave Glider” to Search for Bluefin Tuna and Striped Bass off the North Carolina Coast

The Wave Glider Carey begins her latest mission

A mobile robot called a Wave Glider outfitted with acoustic
receivers to detect free-swimming tagged fish was put in the ocean off the
coast of Beaufort, North Carolina today. The glider was launched from the Duke
ship R/V Susan Hudson outside the Beaufort Inlet by Drs. Dick Barber and Joe
Bonaventura of DukeUniversity. The Glider is part of a collaborative
experiment to test the capacity of the unmanned robot designed for biological
ocean observation, to detect where animals are in relationship to ocean
conditions. For this first test off the North Carolina
seaboard, scientists from Stanford, Duke and EasternCarolinaUniversity
are working together to listen for tagged bluefin tuna, striped bass and
sturgeon that overwinter in North
Carolina waters.

Monitoring marine species is valuable not only for the data
about their whereabouts but also to better understand our changing oceans and climate.
These species can act as roving reporters providing knowledge of their presence
or absence in relationship to ocean conditions.
Bluefins and striped bass overwinter in the coastal waters of North Carolina to feed
on Menhaden an oily forage fish that is a coastal favorite of both species.

“I am really enthusiastic about the role of the Wave Glider,
this new ocean robot, to help us detect where fish are” said Dr. Barbara Block
a professor from StanfordUniversity. “We’ve been
tagging bluefin tuna for years, through the Tag-A-Giant program, off the Carolina coast and we’re
now moving into the phase of developing techniques to long-term monitor their presence
or absence along the eastern Seaboard. The glider provides an opportunity to
experiment with how to do this in the rough winter conditions of the Hatteras
coastline.”

The TAG team tags a giant bluefin

The bluefin tunas Block is searching for were tagged with
long-term acoustic tags in Canada
this past summer and fall. Block estimates there are over 50 bluefin with tags
roaming the Atlantic seas, and is hoping that the hot spot region off Carolina will attract the
tagged fish into the region. She and her team have studied bluefin tuna for
years determined previously this foraging hot spot is like a favorite
restaurant where the tunas tend to gather from several populations roaming in
the North Atlantic. By deploying the Wave
Glider in this region, they hope to hear the tags’ acoustic pings, which allow
them to detect and identify individual tunas.

In addition, ECU professor Roger Rulifson is leading a team
on the R/V Cape Hatteras, an NSF ship managed by DukeUniversity,
which will be out tagging stripped bass acoustic tags. “We hope that the Glider can pick up some of
the new animals we’re releasing in the next few weeks and help monitor the
presence of a variety of fish and sharks we’ve been tagging in the region the
past few years,” said Rulifson. Like
Barbara, he is investigating how mobile receivers can aid in the teams capacity
to monitor where fish are in the rough winter conditions off the Carolina coast.

Duke University Professor Dick Barber stands with the Carey glider

The glider is was deployed by two of Block’s mentors, Drs.
Joe Bonaventura and Dick Barber from DukeUniversity,
where Block got her Ph.D. in 1986. “Ocean Observation is critically important,
and I am pleased to see the next steps in biological observation being tested
here off North Carolina,”
says Professor Dick Barber. “I was fortunate to know Frank Carey, the pioneering
tuna scientists from Woods Hole Oceanographic, and a Duke Post-doc, after whom
the Carey Glider was named, and he would be very pleased to know of the
experimental importance of this mission- chasing Atlantic bluefin and striped
bass off our coast”.

The Wave Glider is manufactured by Liquid Robotics of
Sunnyvale California. The project is funded by a Rolex award to Block, The Tag
A Giant Fund, DukeUniversity, StanfordUniversity
and Liquid Robotics.